It’s been more than seven months since the Arizona Wildcats were eliminated from the College World Series. Daniel Susac hasn’t completely let it go.
“It’s still there mentally,” the sophomore catcher said. “I’ll watch the games over again, see where we could have maybe done something.”
“He wants a do-over so bad,” said his father, Nick. “He felt they could have won it.”
If this seems antithetical to the baseball adage that the most important pitch is the next one, well, it is. But there are some things you need to understand about Daniel Susac. Once you do, it all makes sense.
First off, he excels at compartmentalizing his feelings. It’s an essential tool for a catcher, who, unlike every other position player, has to deal directly with another person — the pitcher — throughout the game. If you strike out to end an inning, you can’t take that frustration back behind the plate.
Susac succeeded more than most last season, when he batted .335 with 12 home runs and 65 RBIs and was named Pac-12 Freshman of the Year. He failed too, as all hitters do, but didn’t let it affect him.
“He never took offense to defense or defense to offense,” UA pitching coach Dave Lawn said.
That skill — being able to separate the good from the bad; the extraneous from what’s really important — will come in handy more than ever this season. Susac is a consensus preseason All-American. He’s projected to be a high first-round pick in this year’s MLB draft. It can be a lot.
“There’s people here every day to watch him,” said UA hitting coach Toby DeMello, who also tutors the catchers. “Anytime there’s external voices or pressure, it can add something for sure. But he does a really good job of ... I don’t want to say ignoring the outside noise but harnessing it.
“It’s not like that’s all fake. He’s earned the right to be a preseason All-American. He’s earned the right to be in the conversation to be one of the top picks, if not the top pick, in the draft. We don’t run from it. We embrace it.”
Susac said anyone who contends they don’t hear the noise is lying to themselves. You just have to know when and how to shut it off.
You can also be proactive about it. You can try to prove the so-called experts right.
“That’s cool that all these other people think that you’re really good,” DeMello said. “But are you going to work like that? Are you going to work like you’re the No. 1 pick?
“Other people might think that, but do you think that? Do you believe that? If you’re working like that every single day, then the results will be what they are. He’s put in the work and the time and effort.”
Arizona’s Daniel Susac led the Wildcats to the College World Series in 2021.
Self-improvement plan
The second thing you should know about Susac is that he’s a fierce competitor. You wouldn’t necessarily get that impression from talking to him. The 20-year-old is baby-faced, composed and introspective.
Don’t let that fool you.
“He’s got a real mean streak in him that people really don’t know about,” said UA coach Chip Hale, whose team opens the 2022 season Feb. 18.
“He’s really got a nasty, competitive personality,” Lawn said. “But it’s not over the top. He’s not going in the back of the tunnel and punching a hole in the storage container.”
Susac is competitive “in all the best ways,” Lawn said. This offseason, Susac set out to compete with himself — to improve his game in a variety of ways to live up to the hype, or even exceed it.
Susac is considered a plus defender, blessed with “as good an arm as any big-leaguer I’ve seen,” said Hale, who spent the past 15 seasons coaching big-leaguers.
Susac played quarterback at Jesuit High School in Carmichael, California, a suburb of Sacramento. He’s built like one, too, at 6 feet 4 inches and about 220 pounds. But height isn’t considered an asset for catchers, who are tasked with operating as low to the ground as possible to frame pitches below the knees and block balls in the dirt.
Susac has played catcher all his life, so none of those movements is unnatural to him. Still, he sought to improve his flexibility. So Susac is among the players who have incorporated yoga into their workout routines.
Under DeMello, a former college and minor-league catcher, Susac has worked to quicken and quiet his setup behind the plate.
“Our whole thing was simplifying everything and making it more vanilla, for lack of a better term,” Susac said.
“The biggest improvements that he’s made have had nothing to do with me,” DeMello said. “It’s been his work ethic and the time he spent in the weight room.”
Susac has added muscle and bulk to his frame. He recently checked in at 223 pounds and would like play in the 215-220 range. He started last season at 205, eventually dipped below 200 and wore down late in the campaign.
As a hitter, Susac has focused on being more patient and disciplined after posting more than twice as many strikeouts (47) as walks (19) last season. His role in the UA lineup has changed. The top five batters from one of the nation’s most prolific offenses were drafted or transferred. Opponents will game-plan around Susac now. He won’t get many pitches to hit.
“You’ve gotta identify the guy you don’t want to beat you,” Hale said. “He’s the guy circled this year.”
Daniel Susac watches as his teammates field balls during Thursday’s practice at Hi Corbett Field.
Baseball family
The third thing you should know about Susac is that being in the spotlight, or at least adjacent to it, is nothing new for him.
Daniel Susac is the youngest of three baseball-playing brothers. Middle brother Matt pitched at Nevada under Lawn and former UA coach Jay Johnson. Oldest brother Andrew, also a catcher, made it to the big leagues. He appeared in 114 games from 2014-20 and spent last season in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization.
Daniel saw Andrew go through the recruitment process. (He ended up at Oregon State, where Daniel initially committed.) Daniel saw Andrew go through the draft process, not once but twice. (He signed with the San Francisco Giants after being picked in the second round in 2011.)
What better resource could an elite college catcher with professional aspirations possibly have?
Said Lawn: “Having a major-league brother who played the same position and the amount of knowledge that comes with that, and then having another brother who played Division I ... I remember the first time I saw Daniel. It was probably our first year at Nevada, and Daniel was 11 or 12. He’s hitting. He’s taking BP with us. Who gets to do that?
“I’m sure there’s other scenarios where he got exposed to things that most kids aren’t. It’s a baseball family. How could it not influence him? Even if he licked only three or four nuggets off the grass over all those years, it’s probably more than most.”
Daniel Susac described his relationship with his brothers as part-ongoing rivalry, part-unwavering support system. His competitiveness, and how he channels it, springs from that foundation.
From the time he was a toddler, Susac tried desperately to keep up with his siblings, who are 10 and 11 years his senior. He lost more than he won, and he didn’t handle it well. That carried over onto the diamond.
“His brothers would take pictures of him raging,” their dad said. “He saw how stupid he looked.”
Susac learned he wouldn’t last in this sport riding that emotional roller coaster. He learned how to handle failure. He learned to compartmentalize.
So yeah, memories of the College World Series linger — the hope, the disappointment. Susac keeps them tucked away, letting the fire burn within.
